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Thursday, 8 December 2011

* Cameron Highlands Resort

Cameron Highlands is a popular destination for holidaymakers especially among Malaysians who want to take a break from the unbearable heat and humidity at home. This hill station has however lost its original charm as many areas have becomes congested and over-commercialized.We chose to stay in Cameron Highlands Resort which is a luxury hill resort with the expectation that it would provide a more exclusive environment, a cozy ambiance and a garden with beautiful landscape and pretty flower beds. This is a beautiful resort but somehow it failed to meet my expectation.

There are things I do like about the resort though.The lobby for instance, is cozy and tastefully designed.

Just adjacent to the lobby is the Jim Thompson Tea Room where you can enjoy some tea and scones. This place is equally cozy, well appointed and exude a kind of colonial charm.(picture below)

The not so nice part about the resort is its location which is not exclusive and private as it is built beside a busy trunk road. The car park which is not covered and which is one level below the resort building is not very guest-friendly either. It is some distance to the lobby and you will have to climb a flight of stairs to get there.

The resort could not get our room ready and we had to wait more than an hour before we could finally check-in (at 3.15pm). The management was apologetic about this and offered to give us complimentary drinks. I asked for some scones and tea which they obliged.

There is a classic looking library in the resort, called the Reading Room. This seems to be a trademark of all YTL owned hotels as all seem to have libraries.

There are a couple of restaurants in the resort. This one , called the Dining Room is where we took our breakfast. The ambiance and setting is superb but the food isn't. We did not enjoy the only meal we had at this restaurant. Our half boiled eggs turned out to be 95% boiled. We anticipated waffle with a slight crunch on the crust but what we got was a very soggy waffle. The other accompaniments too, were very average.

The resort also offers a variety of massages and spa treatment. They are a bit pricey though.

We did a tea spa which started with soaking in a tub of tea for half an hour.

The tea used for this spa is the normal tea we consume as beverage. The soak is followed with a refreshing full body massage.

The resort offers other facilities like the gym, the snooker room, a souvenir shop, and free usage of computers and internet.

This fish pond with giant-sized Koi is the main attraction in the resort.

Other than this, I do not see much effort being taken to landscape the resort. There were hardly any beautiful shrubs and obviously no flower beds. To me this is quite a disappointment as I love flowers and a waste as cool climate is hard to come by in Malaysia.

This is a nice resort but because it is branded "luxury" and it certainly is not cheap to lodge here, I think there is still room for improvement.